Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Spiffy:

Iffy:

No hands-on playtime; pre-alpha code means it's still early; how long will we have to wait?

Pandemic Studios was in attendance yesterday at EA's pre-GDC 2007 social function, and it was showing off a new demo of its upcoming sequel Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. While the controller never left the skilled hands of Pandemic's staffers, I was more than eager to watch the pre-alpha code being put through its paces. For those not in the know, the first game (which hit Xbox and PS2 a few years ago) was well-received and offered up some hugely entertaining, over-the-top gunplay and action.

World in Flames looks set to bring the same level of carnage to the next generation systems (minus the Wii of course) with some all-new additions and one or two cool tricks and surprises to boot. The game is set in Venezuela and sees a crazed madman tampering with the country's oil supply, which ultimately creates a war zone. For a mercenary, however, this is the perfect breeding ground for money, power and one hell of a good time blowing crap up.

Mercenaries 2 embraces the mantra of, "If you see it, you can buy it, steal it, or blow the living crap out of it." And that's a pretty accurate depiction of what I saw happen in the demo. Although the demo was over in five or so minutes, I was able to get a decent feel for how the final product will most likely shape up. Up first, our mercenary -- a buff chap called Mathias, sporting many tattoos and a mohawk -- spawned on a jetty and was almost immediately pinned down by ferocious crossfire from the opposing force.

After pulling out a rather tasty machinegun and strapping an
RPG launcher to his back, our man began to cut a swathe through the enemies, making his way toward two concrete gun nest towers. One of the new features of the game is being able to lob packs of sticky C4 explosives at inanimate objects, which was perfectly illustrated as both of the towers soon exploded in a shower of bricks and rubble.

Taking this one step further, our hero then chucked some C4 into a nearby jeep. What happened next was pretty cool. Mathias drove the jeep at high-speed toward an enemy bunker and managed to bail out just before the collision sent the whole thing blowing sky-high. Impromptu exploding death rockets in the shape of cars? I think so! Next up, I got to see the sheer destructive power of Mathias' RPG launcher, which managed to level more than a few nearby huts and structures with great ease.

Suddenly, a large tank drove into view, posing the first real threat to our man of action. Not phased in the slightest, my demoing host proceeded to engage in a cool context-sensitive minigame which involved jumping and swinging from the tank's gun barrel, slapping around the tank's driver, and subsequently grabbing a grenade and tossing it into the vehicle's interior. After the smoke has cleared, Mathias was now in control of the mighty metal beast, and was about to wreak more havoc than ever before.

Things went from crazy to ridiculous in a very short space of time, as two of the many different styles of air strikes were shown off. One appeared to be a napalm-style strike which decimated an entire village in one shot, while the other was a controlled surgical strike which leveled an ornate coliseum-style structure. The levels of carnage and mayhem were pretty spectacular, to say the least.

The demo wrapped up with a brief look at a different area, the mercenaries' base. A large chopper and various land-based cars, trucks and vehicles resided outside their HQ, presumably acting as some kind of hub level for the game's various war zones. With the promise of over 130 different vehicles, online two-player co-op action, and large open-ended environments, there's little doubt that World in Flames will be anything short of epic. If you like blowing stuff up, then this is one to watch.